R.I.P. Charles Huntley Nelson

I had had in mind a number of posts regarding exhibitions, but find myself compelled instead to offer a preliminary memorial note regarding Charles Huntley Nelson, who died of complications following a stroke. He had been ill for some months with advanced stomach cancer.

I asked Charles to co-curate "Speed: Life in an Accelerated Culture" at the inception of the twenty-first century because he had already curated exhibitions that introduced me to the work of many of the younger artists who I wished to include in the "Speed" exhibition I had been invited to curate. I was deeply impressed by his sense of professionalism and reflections on the shape of a rapidly changing global culture.

His conceptual querying of issues of race and class in his remixes of Metropolis and The Invisible Man made me anxious to see his similar treatment of Alphaville, of which the preliminary results have been on exhibit at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center.

He was a midcareer artist whose work had slowly gained national recognition, and his loss at this stage of his mature output is a particular tragedy.

The trajectory of his career can be viewed at www.charleshnelson.com.